drum
[dʁʊm]
The verdict
“drum” is a regularly-used German word, ranked #5,161 in German word frequency and used as an adverb.
- #5,161
- frequency rank, German
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - darum
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | drum |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | [dʁʊm] |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #5,161 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “drum” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for drum is 4 letters long, classified as an adverb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [dʁʊm]. Corpus data places it at rank #5,161 in overall German word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "darum".
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for drum, with forms such as "ddrum", "drmu", and "drrum". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "du", "duo", "Dur", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct German form is drum, spelled D-R-U-M.
Definition
- 1darum
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddrum,drmu,drrum,drumm,durm,rdum
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of drum - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "drum"?
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Using “drum”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is D-R-U-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [dʁʊm] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “du” - see the side-by-side comparison. drum vs du
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.